Netherland

Ingredients

Instructions:

Shake the brandy, orange curaçao (you can use less -- it's a matter of individual taste), and bitters well with cracked ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Add a dash of absinthe and you've got a Dream.

The Wondrich Take:

Back in the Golden Age of the American saloon, before the farmers and haberdashers and other dry what-have-yous looked to the law to stop what they couldn't by moral example, a bartender had to be a craftsman, an initiate in the alchemical arts who could perfectly reproduce a thousand and one potions without consulting any formulary but the one in his head -- right? Wrong. As old-school newspaperman George Ade observed, "to serve drinks in the common run of places required no more technical skill than is needed to put food in front of domestic animals." In nine out of ten saloons, if you ordered a cocktail -- any cocktail, not just a Bunny Hug or a Fluffy Ruffles or any such pimp wash -- you'd get the fisheye. If you persisted, the boot. Whiskey -- plain -- was good enough for most drinking men, with or without a schooner of beer on the side.

Now, true initiates did exist, but you had to know where to find them. Your best bet was the bar in a big-city hotel, and not a cheap one. And naturally, the biggest and most expensive city had the most -- New York was cocktail country. The Cosmopolitan (after which the drink was most assuredly not named), the Broadway Central, the Brevoort, the Albert, the St. Denis, the Morton House, the Springer House, the Everett House, the Continental, the Fifth Avenue, and on and on into the dozens -- all maintained meticulous bars, oases of oak and cut glass where you could order anything from an Amsterdam to a Woxum and be assured of perfection in the result.

Needless to say, just about every one of these palais de hooch had a house cocktail. A few of them survived the Volstead Act, including the potent Waldorf, the Hoffman House (a martini with orange bitters; recommended), the Holland House (a martini with fruit; not recommended) -- and the Netherland.

Although the New Netherland Hotel, on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street, was for a time the tallest in the world, its signature drink is a relatively modest affair: just a splash of brandy, a dash of curaçao, a drop or two of orange bitters. Still, there is elegance here. As the example of Grand Marnier proves, brandy and bitters orange enjoy a relationship based on mutual esteem and sympathy, feelings which they will impart to you and that delightful someone as you sip your Netherlands. After dinner, preferably -- the drink is on the sweet side. But, ahem, so are you, right?